With his participation in the 52 Express project, former TT legend Guy Martin hopes to break the land speed record for streamliners.
Martin made his bones on the strength of his appearance in the gripping Isle of Man TT race documentary Closer To The Edge, and since then he’s set records for the fastest hovercraft, fastest gravity snow sled, and even the fastest gravity-powered Soapbox racer.
The team behind the 52 Express hopes to break a land speed record for streamliners - currently set at 376.363 mph (605.679 kph) by Rocky Robinson in the Ack Attack streamliner motorcycle at the Bonneville Salt Flats - by the end of 2021 or the spring of 2022. The machine they’ve built is a melding of a 30-foot-long streamliner body with a Rolls Royce Gem helicopter turbine engine.
Robinson’s streamliner used an amazing twin Suzuki Hayabusa engine. In 2010, Robinson broke the land speed record when he rode his Top Oil Ack Attack streamlined motorcycle at an average of 605 kph (376 mph) over a distance of one kilometer.
And Martin himself once attempted to break a speed record over a mile back in 2013 atop his own Hayabusa.
Martin is joined in the project by British Superbike team owner Bernie Toleman and has Martin already inked a deal for a Channel-4 documentary on the effort for British television. The documentary will follow the team’s attempt at the record on the salt flats at Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia.
THE 52 EXPRESS project is led by former GP and TT sidecar racer Alex Macfadzean. Macfadzean is no stranger to quests for pure speed as he’s worked on several Land Speed Record vehicles - both of the two-and-four-wheeled variety.
In case you’re wondering what a run at that blistering speed looks and sounds like, you can check out Robinson’s run in the video here.
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